Music
by Emily31594
Summary: A series of modern-day AU pieces, long and short, about a Regina and Robin who grew up together in England, she as the violin-playing daughter of the old nobility and a determined American mother, and he as the gardener's son. They lose touch, then reconnect years later when he finds himself at one of her concerts. Only a few chapters are M, and they will be marked as such.
1. Da Capo

_Note: I have deleted these drabbles from the drabble collection and am reposting them because this verse will be expanding and I want it all together in one place._

He befriends her in childhood, goes on adventures with his parents' employers' daughter at an age when children mix and adults think little of it. Her mother wants her to be a wealthy and powerful businesswoman, and as the best friends age into their late teens, Robin and Regina begin to grow apart, he into a life of mistakes and second chances and laughter and dreams and messing up, and she into the life her mother has planned for her from infancy.  
She plays violin, beautifully, comes alive with it, and one day as he watches her practice he gives in to the gravity that has always drawn them together, waits to the end of the nocturne and joins his lips with hers, feels her kiss back for one beat, two, before she is running, she is gone—stubborn, young, fearful, running back to her life as he slips back into his.  
Years later a friend invites him to a concert hall, and there she is, a famous violinist, untouchable, stunning, wearing a blood red gown that picks up the veins of color in her instrument and in her long, dark hair; she went after her dream and not her mother's, after all.  
He comes again the next night, and the next, finally finds the courage to knock on her dressing room door as she practices, and when she calls that he should enter and continues, the way she breathes with the instrument, the joy in her soul, touches something in his as it had all those years ago, makes her suddenly within his reach as he watches, waits, sees the flare of recognition light in her eyes, the hope, a second chance.


	2. Poco a Poco

Poco a Poco

They do not know each other as adults, and so they start slowly, with afternoons in coffee shops (long afternoons that stretch into evenings, there is so much to say), and they banter, tease, relearn how to navigate the sometimes familiar and occasionally unknown paths of each others' hearts. She leaves London eventually for her next concert tour, and he drives her to the airport, gives her a fierce hug, hands her her violin case and sneaks a kiss to her forehead.  
Robin misses her horribly for the six weeks that she is away, but when she returns something about the distance between them has thrown her off, she feels distant even beside him, and one evening their banter finds a life of itself and turns hateful and hurtful, all of the pain they've felt in missing and wanting and regretting and resenting for as long as they have been apart seeping through.  
The next night, he walks towards her dressing room with flowers bunched in one hand (wildflowers, mismatched and colorful), sees her leaning against the wall beside the door with a smirk on her lips, another man next to her, their faces close as they sip at some fragrant and expensive drink.  
He backs away, the wildflowers landing in a puddle outside the backstage door. He is common, and she is stunning, and he never has been and never will be enough for her.  
And yet, three days later, he finds the courage (he aches with missing her, perhaps he finds the need) to knock on the door to her London flat, and she laughs at his scowl, kisses him soundly right there in her doorway. She saw the flowers, she tells him, knew it was him, and he's an idiot, Jefferson is her best friend from music school and she spent the evening gushing to him about Robin. His eyes widen at her amused smile and the light in her eyes, and then he's dragging her back to his mouth for another kiss, setting her palms against his chest as she kicks the door shut and stumbles back with him. They land on the bed in a heap, Regina giggling and Robin catching her melting brown eyes with shimmering blue, the halves they've always been to each other mended into a whole.


	3. Vivace

Vivace

Regina had surprised Robin with the suggestion that he accompany her for her two-week concert engagement in Chicago, but Robin had been more than willing to get to follow her on the plane for once, rather than waving her off at Heathrow and feeling homesick for her for the duration of her trip.

One of her delightfully quirky habits which Robin has quickly learned is her preference for breakfast food after late concert nights.

Which is why Robin is currently wandering the streets of Chicago at midnight on a Wednesday in search of open—well, something—while Regina finishes up her reception with the concert hall's wealthiest patrons.

…

When Regina enters their hotel room at 1:30am in flats and the red ball gown that made Robin's jaw drop earlier that evening, heels dangling from her fingers, her stomach growls after almost twelve hours without food at the delicious scents filling the room.

Robin has repurposed the small writing desk as a table, spread with orange juice, water, decaf coffee, eggs, toast, pancakes, and half a dozen other breakfast dishes.

"You found breakfast food for me?" Regina asks, looking from the food to the man perched casually on the end of the bed and offering her a pile of pajamas and a fresh towel.

"For us," he clarifies, smirking at her (he loves when she gets that bewildered smile because of him, her brow furrowed, her eyes wide and warm; it's a point of great pride). "That is, unless you would like to eat it all."

She steps forward, dropping her heels and flats by the door and sweeping her hair over one shoulder with another glance at the spread. "I just might," she tells him as she turns her back to him and he obliges, pulling down her dress zipper.

Regina spins back around, holding her dress up with an arm pressed across her chest. "You bought me breakfast at midnight," she repeats, rubbing a thumb across the scruff on one side of his jaw. "How did you manage that?"

"I tipped the right people in the hotel kitchen."

"Mushrooms? Tomatos? Beans?"

"Apparently the chef is a fellow Brit."

"Nice."

She kisses him, once, again, a third time, each drawn out longer than the last, the remnants of her blood red lipstick wearing off onto his lips.

"You better go shower, and eat this food before it gets cold," he says against her lips as she shifts to wrap her arms around his neck and steals another kiss.

"Mmm, fine," she agrees.

Rather than pull back, he kisses her again, his hand lifting hers so that her dress pools at her feet.

"You're not helping," she argues with a sigh as one of his hands reaches across her back to unclasp her bra.

" 'Course I am." He moves to kiss her neck, his lips lingering over her pulse point as he pushes her bra strap off her shoulder. "Unless you were planning to shower clothed."

"Robin," she groans, not really a complaint at all, shoving him gently back.

"Yes, of course, Milady," he teases, dropping into a mock bow. "Shower. Then come eat your strange 2am breakfast with me."

She wraps the towel around her torso against the shiver of the cool room, and catches a fistful of his T-shirt to draw his lips back to hers for one last breathtaking kiss. "I may have to keep you around," she sighs, playful, but he doesn't miss the trembling vulnerability, the past loneliness that lingers in her eyes, and he feels like the luckiest man in the world that he's the one who gets to bribe overnight chefs to make Regina Mills a full English breakfast at midnight.


	4. Festivamente

**Festivamente**

Regina hates Christmas. Every year, starting all the way back at Halloween, she plays concert after concert where she has to, if not always perform, at the very least listen to Christmas carol, after Christmas carol, after Christmas carol.

"I swear, if I have to hear 'Silent Night' with orchestral accompaniment or play 'The Nutcracker' one more time this season I'm going to smash my violin and take up the theremin or something," she grumbles to Robin as she slides into their bed just past midnight, the melodies still tapping at her head like the pointy ballet shoes she's watched perform the same dance every night for the 16 shows they've performed so far. "Remind me never to take this job with the ballet again."

Robin chuckles gently as she gets herself settled on his chest, pressing a kiss to her slightly damp hair. "How many more shows?"

"Ugh. Seven. I don't even want to so much as hear the words 'sugar plum' ever again."

"Noted." He pulls the comforter up around them against the early December chill. "No Christmas carols will be played in this house, and if anyone gives us gifts of any sweets mentioned in that ballet, I promise to eat it before you are any the wiser."

She tilts her head to kiss his jaw. "You are a smart man, Robin Locksley."

"I know."

"I don't even want a stocking this year. It'll get that dreadful poem stuck in my head."

Robin's fingers skate across her neck and shoulders. "You know you're getting one anyway."

She heaves a long-suffering sigh, and his hands find their way to her shoulders, turning her so that he can knead the knots out of her muscles. Her sigh becomes a relaxed moan as the strain of eight shows in six days and rehearsals mixed in for other gigs finally leaves her. "Is this a bribe?" she murmurs, "so I'll let you buy me a Christmas present?"

"Maybe." He drops a kiss to her nape, then moves his fingers to her neck and the base of her skull as she melts into his touch, massaging the clenched, tense muscles. His lips press against the shell of her ear, and she can feel his smirk as he whispers, "Is it working?"

She shudders involuntarily at the way his calloused hands feel, warm on her back as he shifts her silk pajamas out of his way and trails gentle fingers up and down her spine. "Damn it, I think it is," she admits, pressing back into his touch.

His eyes dance as she turns over, straddles his legs, starts to remove his cotton T-shirt. "Good. Mmm I'll have to think about what to get you. Wouldn't want to forget about it until _The Night Before Christmas_."

"Robin," she returns with a growl, tossing his shirt aside and resting her forehead on his.

"Yes?"

She speaks the words into his lips, centimeters away from allowing the contact to become a kiss. " _Shut up_."


	5. Piu Mosso

**Piu mosso**

Regina wakes in the morning to the whistle of a boiling kettle, and the quiet clink of pottery.

A smile forms on her lips as she stretches out her bare limbs, a bend of her arm reminding her of twining those limbs around Robin's neck last night, the clench of her fingers recalling the way they had twisted into his hair, a deep breath echoing their gasps, the shift of her legs, the fullness and friction, warmth and bliss of him inside her.

She revels for a moment, and then pushes back the last edges of the sheets and searches out her panties on the carpet.

She snatches Robin's T-shirt on her way out of the room, tugging it over her head with a fond smile for the deep green color she used to tease him for wearing constantly when they were children.

"Still dressing like a forest, then?" she asks as she enters her flat's open kitchen and living room.

He turns to smile softly at her, an expression in his eyes and on his lips that melts her heart in a way it hasn't been melted for over half a decade. But it's new, as well—there's a fire that speaks of an adult who is even more certain of what he feels them to be.

He raises an eyebrow at her. "And if I were to open that closet, your clothes wouldn't be almost entirely black?"

Her eyes spark at the challenge. "I _am_ a musician."

She glances at the counter and frowns, then, noticing the minute he picks up on it, because his lips fall to mirror hers.

"What is it?" he asks.

She fights the dampness pooling in her eyes, shaking her head gently. "You're making tea?"

"With whole milk and one scoop of brown sugar," he confirms confidently, faltering a second later, "Why, do you prefer coffee now? I could-"

She shakes her head quickly, a hundred beautiful memories blurring into the present. "It's perfect."

His brow furrows in confusion. "Then, what—"

Regina sighs, walking to him and stepping into his waiting arms, hers tight around his waist.

"Aren't you afraid that we're going to screw this up? It's been so long, and we were so young…"

He presses a kiss to the top of her head, his fingers threading through her hair.

"I was afraid," he confesses, "Terrified, actually. You're this—loving, talented, intelligent, gorgeous violin player, and I'm just a humble gardener who's been in love with you since we were fifteen."

She pulls back to smile at him, more radiant even than he remembered in his dreams. "And now?"

He swoops her up into his arms suddenly, spinning them around once, drawing a surprised shriek and a fondly scolding _Robin_ from her lips.

He sets her back on her feet, her giddy, dizzy stumble nearly pulling them both to the ground before he rights them.

"And now, I'm making you tea in your kitchen, and your hair's all tousled from spending the night in bed with me," he reaches to touch it again, then trails his hand down to tug at the sleeve of her borrowed T-shirt, "and you stole my shirt and to be honest, I can't remember what I was so afraid of." He cradles her face, his callused fingerpads against her soft skin.

Regina blinks once, twice, and when she owns her eyes again, he's even closer, his mouth maybe six inches from her own.

"Fifteen, hm?" she asks, a grin spreading across her face as she cups his jaw and closes the distance between them.

"Mhm," he confirms against her lips, before slanting his lips over hers, their kiss clumsy for the way they're both smiling into it.

Her eyes flutter closed as his palm slides under her T-shirt and onto her back to tug her closer.

"When we were fourteen," she challenges, backing him into the counter and nipping along his jaw until a quiet moan escapes his lips, "you left a bouquet of flowers in my room once a week."

"Yes, well, I–did have a lot of them," he manages between kisses.

She chuckles at him, even as her fingers thread into his hair and his tongue traces the seam of her lips. "Robin?"

"Hm?"

She pulls back for a moment, dropping her forehead to his as they catch their breaths, his stubble prickling her palms. Affection coils warm in her belly for the boy who left her a bouquet of wildflowers after every recital, the man who brought flowers to her concert and worried he somehow wasn't sophisticated enough for her, and yet was brave enough to show up on her doorstep anyway, "I've been in love with you since we were fourteen, too."


	6. Con Fuoco

**Con Fuoco**

"They're going to call my flight any minute," Regina gasps, trailing off into a whine as Robin thrusts into her again, one hand flattening her wrist to the door, the other looped around her waist to cushion her against the door.

He moves his hand for a moment to hitch her leg higher around his hips, grunting with the effort as he quickens his pace, determined not to leave her all hot and bothered and unsatisfied on her seven-hour flight to New York.

Her hands twist into his hair, harsh moans tumbling from her lips, and Robin bends forward for a kiss, inhaling sharply against her lips as she orders, "More, Robin."

He raps his hips harder against her, fingers sliding from her wrist to tangle in her gorgeous hair, just in time to cushion her as she drops her head back against the wall with a moan. She feels amazing around him, warm and wet and tight, and God how he's missed this, missed her. He knows her so well by now, knows her body and the sounds spilling from her lips, knows how close she is as her melted warm eyes meet his.

She smiles at him, wide enough that it spreads across her whole face, to her eyes, strained with muscles taut from pleasure. Affection for her nearly chokes him, longing, sparking up his spine with the bursts of pleasure; she has been away for four weeks, and is going away for two more.

He lets his hand wander from around her back to her belly, under her cotton T-shirt to cup her breast, slide his thumb back and forth over her nipple through the lace of her bra.

"Just–Just like that," she gasps, her voice reedy, and he grunts as her nails score over his neck. She comes at last with a groan muffled in his shoulder, and he has to remind himself even with the glorious feeling of her around him, her relieved, panting breaths in his ear, that he needs to be quiet as he thrusts into her desperately and comes with a groan of her name.

She pets his hair as he comes down from his high, her nails against his scalp sending echoes of shivers through his limbs as he drops his forehead to her shoulder.

The prim, pre-recorded voice reaches his ears just as his breathing evens out. "Flight number 9836 with service from London Heathrow to New York will begin boarding in ten minutes."

Robin lifts his head, sighing in disappointment as Regina lets her leg drop back to the ground and he pulls out of her.

He clings anyway, fingers burrowing into her hair as she smiles almost sleepily at him. "I have to get through security."

"There wasn't a long line," he argues, palms rubbing up and down her arms as she straightens her clothes and smoothes out her hair.

"Robin," she sighs fondly.

"Go tomorrow," he begs, dropping his forehead to hers and tilting his lips for a kiss.

"You know I can't," she protests against his lips.

"I miss you," he sighs, finally relenting and fixing his own clothes, retrieving his jacket from the floor of the family restroom. Which, he thinks absently, maybe he should wash that before he wears it again.

"I know," Regina bites her lip, and he reaches out to wipe away a smudge of red lipstick from the side of her mouth, "I miss you too. But I'll be back in two weeks, and then I don't have another out-of-town gig for three months."

"You better not," he grumbles, failing at any semblance of control over his quickly deteriorating mood. He loves that she's successful, that she gets to travel the world to perform, he does. It's just–hard, missing her.

"It'll go by quickly," she promises, smoothing a thumb over his disagreeing, frowning lips. She brushes the hair off his forehead with a fond smile for his continued grouchiness. "Thank you for spending my two-hour layover with me."

He chuckles at last at that. "I think it was well worth my time."

She kisses him one last time, lets them breathe each other in and store it up. They'll kiss again, at the edge of the line for security, but this is the last one they have alone, just them. "Good."

He drops his forehead back to hers, just for one minute more.

"Flight number 9836 with service from London Heathrow to New York will begin boarding in five minutes."

Robin groans. "Fine. You know, I really hate that woman's voice."

Regina giggles as she retrieves her violin case and purse from the floor and twists the lock on the door. She was in a poor mood when he first saw her today, has had a bad couple of weeks on the Continent with an apparently foul-tempered conductor, and even if it's putting him in a foul mood of his own to have to say goodbye to her again, this was definitely worth it.


	7. A Tempo, Part 1

Hello all. It's been a while. I still haven't logged back on to tumblr, and I have to say I'm not entirely sure I ever will. I don't think I realized how poisonous that environment was to me until I left it for a while. That doesn't mean I didn't find wonderful people or enjoy it, it's just that it was causing me more anxiety and frustration and general anguish than any hobby needs to in life.

Anyway, I started working on this last fall, and I really do want to go back and at least finish the things I'd gotten so far on. I think this fandom created far better stories throughout than the writers ever did, and I don't want to let them take this away from me. Besides which, I missed these guys a lot these past few months, and I missed all of you. We'll see how more things go, as life is pretty busy right now, and I waver on different days about wanting to write again. But I hope I'll be able to, at the very least, finish the things I'd started. Maybe I'll even be inspired to actually write Rift. For now, if you want to reach me, messaging me on fanfiction dot net is probably best, and as always I'd love to hear from you. Watching and following the show is over for me, as it has been for a long time, but I'm trying to feel that that doesn't mean the characters and stories I create have to be.

As it's been a while, I'll remind you that this belongs in Music-verse, and you can find the existing pieces in this verse both on a03 and fanfiction dot net. Basically: she's from a rich business family but became a violinist, he's a gardener, they were childhood friends, and now they've reconnected. Many thanks to ninzied for her brilliant work on this one, and for not letting me give upon this one.

Lots of love, always,

Emily

 _Present day_

She's in one of her black dresses today, with tights and tall boots and her hair braided up against her head like she does when it's humid or rainy. He can tell even from this distance.

Normally, he'd sit near the front, on the left side of the audience, where he could best see her. But the tickets available at such short notice had apparently been more limited. He has ached with missing her already, but somehow, sitting as he is in the same hall as her, the ache strengthens.

She looks a little off today-is he imagining it? No; he can't be. She does. A little slow to lift her instrument, less focused on the music than she typically seems to be, more focused on her stand than the audience in between pieces.

Is she taking care of herself? He scowls at the thought. Of course she is. She's perfectly capable. But then, his experience tells him that when she's upset she's rarely good at tending to her own needs, and certainly this would be no different.

He's always liked Sunday matinees, the students and families and bright-eyed (or weary and bored) children brought by their parents. It makes for interesting people-watching at intermission, and they're playing some of his favorites tonight, including a Beethoven overture in the first half, and a beautiful cello concerto in the second, but it's almost as if it's not quite reaching his ears.

 _A few days earlier_

"Charlotte Easton's twenty-first birthday ball is in a couple of weeks," Regina informs Robin as she drops a pile of bills on her desk, carrying with her to the kitchen the singular personal bit of mail-the cream cardstock, gold-embossed, very official-looking invitation. "Mother's been pestering me about it for weeks."

"Has she?" Robin lifts the sauté pan before him, spooning a generous serving of scrambled eggs onto each of their plates.

Regina scoffs as she sits at one of the stools opposite him. "I'm not going."

Robin lifts his eyes from the coffee he's pouring into mugs. "I thought you always liked Charlotte?" She's the daughter of a family friend, younger than him and Regina by several years, but by Robin's estimation mature for her age, and significantly more likable than the average Mills family acquaintance.

"I do," she agrees, her voice shifting to a less certain tone. "She's all right. But the thought of the party, and mother throwing me at the single, wealthy men as though I were wearing a corset and Victoria and Albert were Queen and King…" She shakes her head.

Robin smirks. "Fair enough. Although I imagine you would look stunning in a corset."

"Hm. Looks like you've given that one some thought," she teases, her soft laugh warming him to the core. She leans over the counter to kiss the corner of his lips, and relieves him of one of the steaming mugs in the process. "Now, I need coffee before I fall back asleep."

He grins. "Night owl."

"I'm a musician!"

"Mhm." He spoons beans onto each of their plates over freshly made toast.

"And someone kept me up rather late last night," she adds.

"Did they?" he teases, coming round the counter to join her, their hot brunch plates in hand. "I wonder who that could've been?"

Their food and Regina's coffee go forgotten for a few moments as he bends to steal a kiss, another, one more, his hands burrowing into the slightly rumpled waves of her hair, hers creeping up his back and around his shoulders.

"It was quite lovely," he tells her with a contented sigh when they separate, "last night I mean."

"Mm," she hums in acknowledgement, finally detaching her hands to shake pepper over her eggs and pick up her fork.

"I like waking up here, with you. Cooking you breakfast."

" _Robin_ ," she sighs, setting her fork back on her plate and turning to face him with a piercing gaze that is at once fond and exasperated.

He bites his lip a touch ruefully. He probably could've eased into that one with a bit more subtlety, he'll admit. Still, he presses on. "Move in with me?"

"I-" she hesitates, her eyes leaving his, depriving him of his best means of understanding her feelings on the matter. Yet when he takes one of her hands between his, she allows him to thread their fingers together.

"I'm here most of the time, Regina," he adds. "I sleep here at least four or five nights a week. I'm not even sure what's left in my closet at John's, other than the black trousers and blouse you keep there. And last week, John got-" he clears his throat teasingly, "-well, a bit of an eye-full when he got home early from work."

He hears her breathy chuckle, grinning himself at the memory.

"We've only been together for a year," she protests.

"We've been together since we were eight," he amends, his face relaxing when he sees her lips twitch into half a smile.

"With a slight interruption, I think," she adds, her smile fading as quickly as it had come. They don't talk about that _interruption_ , the years when they did not speak to each other, did not even know where the other lived, or what they were doing. The photo albums of their childhood remain in the bottom of a closet drawer, and rarely, if ever, see sunlight. And when her thoughts drift to their past, as they often do, it causes a throb of anxiety, of fear, of regret. How, she always seems to wonder, can they make the decision to move closer together when they've never discussed the reasons they once moved apart?

'Regina," he sighs, "I love you. I want to be with you. And I want to live with you, properly. It doesn't have to be here. We could-I could convince John to move out, and we could share my place, or we could find somewhere new when your lease is up in a couple of months, I just-"

"Robin, I'm not sure I'm comfortable..."

"With what?" he pushes on when she doesn't continue. "Spending nights together? Having my things here? Sharing a space? We already do all of those things, most of the time."

"I know. I know we do." She squeezes his hand reassuringly. "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with letting go of my own space," she finishes, her voice cracking and eyes drifting from his in a way that absolutely breaks his heart, the fear in it, the uncertainty. He clenches his fist against the sting of her words, her implication that she doesn't trust him, trying to remind himself that she does, really, that so many of the relationships in her life have been judgemental and conditional.

He leans closer, although he doesn't reach into her space just yet. "I wouldn't be asking if I didn't think we were ready for it."

There is a pause, a deep silence at the end of which her melting chocolate eyes finally turn to his, warming him to the core in a way that somehow still takes his breath away. "I'll think about it."

"Yeah?" He grins.

"Yes. I promise."

"Okay." He drops a kiss to her temple, satisfied, and turns back to his breakfast.

 _The next day_

Regina is scowling before she's even stepped onto the street to return home.

The (broadly unliked) new maestro's brilliant idea today was to change half the program for a concert series that's opening next _week_ and demand utter perfection in pieces they'd had no idea they'd be playing. All Regina wants out of her evening is to get home, out of this rain, to take off her dripping rain boots and damp jacket, and drink some hot tea. Maybe call Robin and have him pick up some takeaway.

Regina's thumb is millimetres away from tapping Robin's number when the shrill ringtone of an incoming call from Cora Mills interrupts her.

" _Regina, dear._ "

"Hello, Mother," Regina answers, lifting her shoulder to pin the phone against her ear. She struggles against the weight and balance of her violin and umbrella, finally managing to plug in her headphones and drop the phone in her raincoat pocket. There. That's easier.

" _How are you, dear?"_ Her mother asks.

"Fine," Regina replies. "A bit wet."

" _Are you walking home in this weather? Oh, I wish you'd let me buy you that car."_

"The tube is fine, Mother," Regina assures her, as she has a hundred times, "and it would be impossible to find or afford parking near my apartment."

" _But you father and I could-"_

"It's fine, Mother. Truly. I don't mind it."

" _If you say so._ "

Regina allows the topic to lapse. "And, how are you, Mother?" she asks after a few moments of silence.

" _Oh, all right, I suppose,"_ she replies, in a plaintive tone whose insincerity Regina attempts to ignore. " _Although the doctors say your father's going to be in the hospital until Friday now, dear, and I'll be all alone at home._ "

 _Well, aside from the servants of course_ , Regina adds for herself. Robin's father among them. But to Cora, of course, they're invisible.

" _I don't know what I'll do with myself,"_ she continues. " _The house is dreadful when he's not here, and the dining room here is so large it gets very lonely. But you know, of course, that the Blanchards are visiting friends in New Zealand, and there are no other friends of ours to see."_

Regina frowns as she comes to a stop at a busy intersection, reaching to adjust the strap of her violin case, and hopefully keep it at least partially out of the rain. "They originally said Thursday, didn't they, Mother? It's not so much worse."

" _Regina, my dear, I don't understand why you always insist on making light of these things."_

" _I'm_ making light of things?" Regina asks, frustration creeping into her voice. She's not the one bemoaning a single night of eating dinner alone when it's someone else who's sick. If she's being honest with herself, she muses, trying to calm the jolt of panic she cannot help at her father's slowly worsening condition, she knew this kind of accusation was coming from the moment she answered the phone. It's not as though Mother's ever been known for her generosity and understanding. _She's upset about Daddy, really_ , she tries to remind herself, taking a deep breath that would be more calming if the air weren't freezing cold and damp.

" _I'm sorry, dear,_ " Cora continues, though she doesn't sound terribly contrite, " _you know I don't mean to accuse you. I merely wanted to speak with my little girl. Now, how are you? Still doing that short job with the symphony? Still seeing that young man...what was his name, Robert?"_

"Robin," she replies, leaving the feigned ignorance of the name to one side. "Yes, I am. But the symphony isn't a short job, Mother. They've asked me to stay on more permanently." Regina turns left and continues down an old paved road covered in muddy rivulets of water streaming so thick they leave streaks on her wine-colored rain boots.

" _Oh! When did that happen? You see, you never tell me these things."_

"I did tell you, Mother."

" _When?"_

Regina grimaces as a passing man in a black suit nearly rams his umbrella into her face. "Months ago," she replies, sloshing her way off the curb and lifting her brow in place of betraying her exasperation, even bitterness, to her mother, "when it happened."

" _You see? These are the kinds of things that I would know if we saw more of each other."_

"I told you, Mother-You know what, it doesn't matter." Regina trails off, crossing the last street before she reaches the tube stop. "I-I have to go, Mother. I'm almost home." No use in starting up the comments about the car again.

" _Very well. You know I love you, right, Sweetheart? I'm just feeling lonely."_

"I love you too, Mother," Regina returns, feeling her shoulders sag. She feels worn out, even more than she had a few minutes ago. But Mother's lonely. "You could come to dinner, if you want? Just while Daddy's not there."

" _Oh, I would love to, but I have an engagement tonight. Would tomorrow work?"_

Regina sighs with relief. "Tomorrow's fine, Mother. But I'm having dinner with Robin, so he'll be joining us." Mother may invite herself over, but she's not getting Regina to cancel on Robin. Regina hears her falter for just a moment, before she replies, " _Very well. How's eight o'clock?"_

"Fine."

" _Good then. Goodbye, Regina."_

"Goodbye, Mother."

If she'd written down a prediction for their conversation beforehand, Regina thinks as she closes her umbrella and begins to climb down into the station, she would hardly have missed a word or thought. Including the anger she feels at herself, now, that she let the whole thing play out anyway.

.

.

.

"Hello," Robin says brightly, looking up from the greens he'd been chopping to find Regina hovering at the door, very wet and very tired.

"Hey," she returns, a little surprised. "You're here."

"Mhm. I figured you'd need dinner, and I had these vegetables around, so I thought I'd make us some soup."

She finds herself smiling despite the bad mood that had begun to fester.

"You must be freezing; it's been pouring for almost an hour."

She shakes the rain off of her umbrella and deposits it on the mat just outside the door, humming in acknowledgement. "One moment. I have to dry off my violin case before it seeps through." She glances up briefly as she uses a gloved hand to brush the rain off her violin's waterproof case before setting it in its usual spot beneath the front table. Her smile falls as she glances around the apartment. She'll have to straighten up a little before her mother comes tomorrow. Robin's used more pots and pans in the kitchen than will fit in the dishwasher, and she'll have to find some new flowers, and go to the store to buy whatever she decides to make. Regina must look tense to him, because a moment later, he's walking towards her with a sympathetic frown.

"What is it?" he asks, closing the last of the distance between them and reaching out a hand to catch hers. "Are you all right?" He smells faintly of freshly chopped herbs.

She slides one hand down his arm to his wrist, her eyes never leaving his. "It's been such a day," she admits. "Work was stressful again."

"Mm." He reaches behind her to throw the door shut, squeezing her hand as he guides them a few paces further into the flat, where she can leave her dripping raincoat and sodden gloves.

"And-Mother's coming for dinner again tomorrow."

"Regina-"

"I spoke to her on the phone," she explains, easing past him towards the kitchen. "Daddy's still in the hospital for a couple of days, and she's lonely."

"Your father's going to be in the hospital for an extra day? Is he doing all right?"

Regine ignores that throb of anxiety. "Fine."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly," she retrieves a mug and teabag from the cupboards, aware that she's being a bit more sullen than he deserves. She should really get started on the apartment once she's put the water on to boil, she thinks.

"Are you certain that you truly want to have your mother over? Last time could've gone...a bit better."

Regina scoffs. Last time they'd had the pleasure of hosting Mother during one of Daddy's hospital stays, Regina showed her the door halfway through dessert. _Are you certain he's not with you for the money, dear,_ she'd asked, badly whispered while Robin was clearing the dishes and not at all out of hearing distance. At Regina's outraged _Mother_ , Cora had continued, _I'm asking as your mother, my love. I'm merely looking out for you._

By the time Robin had returned from loading the dishwasher, Cora was stepping primly through the door with a stern scowl on her lips, and a glare reserved especially for him.

He'd laughed it off, until he'd seen her tearing up and pulled her into his arms. But Mother will know better than to do that again, won't she?

"She's lonely, Robin. They don't have many friends who she could spend time with, and Daddy's been away so much lately, and she's stressed about him-"

"But that doesn't mean you're obligated to have her over tomorrow, after the week you've had," he says. She can hear his frustration breaking through the intended gentleness of the suggestion-at Mother, she knows, yet she can't help but feel that some of it is directed at her, as well.

"It doesn't matter," she dismisses as he joins her in the kitchen and tips the last of the ingredients into the soup pot. "It's the right thing to do."

"Is it?" His palm skates down her back before falling at his side as he leans against the counter. "Or is it just what she's convinced you that you have to do?"

Regina bristles. "What?"

"You know what I mean," he insists. "It's how she worms her way in."

"I'm not sure that's the right image," she argues. "My mother is not exactly one for subtlety, Robin."

"Oh you mean like the last time she came over for dinner and _whispered_ that I'm only with you for the money."

"I did kick her out, if you'll remember."

"I don't care about _me_ , Regina. I will be fine if I never win your mother over. I'm worried about you."

"I can take care of myself," she argues, fighting against the burning she feels in her eyes. This has been an absolutely horrible day, amidst a horrible week, and stress always seems to get to her enough to leave her on the verge of tears.

"But that doesn't mean that you have to do it alone," Robin adds gently. He reaches for her, and this time she leans into the hand he places on her shoulder, her tense muscles relaxing slightly, reaching out for the calm he provides. "Ignore her," he pleads. "She doesn't know you, and she doesn't want to."

Regina stiffens, and then she's lifting his hands away, turning from him. "You don't know that," she argues.

"Regina-"

She feels her lips purse, her muscles tighten, her gaze turn away from his. "I'm sorry that she hates you," she says bitterly. "I would change that if I could."

"Regina," he sighs, "you know that's not what I meant."

"You're just my boyfriend, Robin. You _don't_ live here, you don't _know_ me as perfectly as you seem to think, and if you don't want to see my mother, you don't have to come tomorrow."

The urge to cry heats her eyes even more insistently at the way he looks at her, stung, defeated as he turns away, his tears glistening silently on his cheeks, while she had refused to let hers fall.

They spend the next hour in near-silence, bumping awkwardly into each other in the kitchen as Robin finishes dinner, and Regina straightens up in preparation for Mother's visit.

Regina can feel Robin's eyes on her as she tries to enjoy the hot and, as usual, delicious soup. Once she's eaten a little, and is no longer starving and frozen and utterly exhausted from her day, she feels her frustrations softening into gratitude and affection and perhaps some mild exasperation at his stubbornness, a far cry from the anger that had been burning in her before, and the guilt that had followed.

He lets out a heavy breath of relief when she turns to him as they've put their dishes away.

"I'm sorry," she sighs, taking his hand, and then drawing closer until she leans against him, her chin tucked over his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be so-it just-it terrifies me when we argue," she confesses, her voice cracking at the very end.

He sighs, tangling his fingers with hers and pulling back so that they can see each others' faces. He cups her jaw with one hand. "I know, Love. I'm sorry I pushed you."

She nods, a tear escaping her damp eyes and falling down her cheek. He wipes it from her skin.

"I love you," she says, her hand sliding around his side and settling over his heart. "You know that, don't you?"

"I know." His other hand runs up and down her back. "I love you, too." Robin tucks some of her hair behind her ear, and she leans into the touch. "Why don't you go change, and l'll make us some tea, and we can talk, hm?"

She searches his eyes, her anxieties settling to a calm that mirrors their ocean-blue. "Sounds lovely," she agrees.

By the time she reemerges from the bathroom, more comfortable in cotton pajamas than she's been all day, combing through wet hair with her fingers, he's on the sofa with two steaming mugs of decaffeinated chai.

"Hi," she says, sitting beside him and folding her legs beneath her.

"Hey." He catches her hand and squeezes lightly before passing her her tea. "Comfortable?"

She takes a sip, and he grins at the smile-though small-that it brings to her lips. "Very."

He takes a deep breath. "I think that it is admirable of you, to want to care for your mother."

"Thank you," she breathes.

"I just want to make sure you also care for yourself."

She nods. "This is something I have to do, Robin. For me."

He frowns, looking down into his steaming mug.

"You don't have to eat with us," she begins, "not because of what I said earlier, but...if you don't want to. I would understand."

He looks up at that. "Regina, no, of course I'm going to stay-I just- I _hate_ to watch you with her when she's being-it breaks my heart."

She's touched, but unconvinced, fighting that tinge of annoyance that he always has to poke and prod at her weakest parts. "I know. I'll be fine, truly. I promise."

He sighs heavily. "If you're certain this is what you want."

"I am."

"All right." He takes a final sip of tea, leaving the empty cup on the rug and tugging at their joined hands.

Regina smiles softly, setting her half-empty mug of tea on a coaster and crossing the short distance between them. She meets him for a brief kiss, then tucks her head onto his shoulder as he winds one arm around her.

"What happened today?" he asks after a few moments.

"Hm?"

He begins to comb his fingers through her drying hair. She leans into the touch. "You know, other than, well, all of this."

"Oh. We're not playing the Mozart for the concert series next month, apparently. He's done with that. Spent so much time hollering at us about it in rehearsals that he's decided it's time for something new."

"You worked so hard on that, and you spent hours working out bowing on half a day's notice," he says indignantly.

Somehow, his frustration on her behalf allows some of her own to ease. "Yes. But it happens."

He sighs. "Still, you weren't in the right mood for your mother this evening."

"No." Her fingers pause where they had been tracing absent-minded patterns across his chest.

Robin's fingers stop for a moment, too, and he tilts his head thoughtfully. "Do you think I could subtly inquire about your fortunes while you're making the tea?"

Regina scoffs, stretching her legs out beside his on the couch.

"No? Hmm." He makes a show of tilting his head to the other side as if he has to think hard about his other options. "What if I slip the china into my jacket while the two of you aren't looking?"

" _Robin_ ," she laughs.

"Seriously. I could abscond with your wallet, right in the middle of dinner." He bends to kiss her neck. "I suppose the most valuable thing in the flat is your violin."

She shoves his chest. "Don't even _joke_ about that."

"What? I have a reputation to uphold. Clearly I'm dating you for the grand inheritance I assume you have."

"Mm. How _do_ you put up with me?"

They chuckle softly together. "It is, Regina Mills, sincerely a pleasure."

"Will you stay tonight?" she asks, allowing her head to rest on his shoulder again.

He weaves a hand through her damp hair. "Of course."

"The Addison's daughter just married a duke, you know," Cora says primly. Robin fights the urge to roll his eyes. Honestly, how many of these stories are they going to make their way through in one evening? How many could she possibly have?

"But does he grow his own roses for his wife?" Robin asks archly, catching Regina's smirk out of the corner of his eye. He pours himself another glass of red wine. No point in dealing with Cora Mills without it.

"Well I'm sure he has people for that," Cora says dismissively.

Robin nearly chokes on his sip of wine. Good Lord, this woman.

Cora turns away from him and back to Regina, as though the exchange had never taken place. "And Anna Clifton has been put in charge of the new division at her company."

"Mother—" Regina begins.

"Have you ever thought, dear…I mean you were always so keen on business, when you were younger. I'm certain your father would know a few—"

"I was never interested in business, Mother," Regina says calmly, taking a sip of her wine. Robin looks between them.

"What do you mean? You were always so good at—"

"Mrs. Mills-" Robin starts, his jaw tense, "I-"

"-think dinner must be nearly ready," Regina finishes for him with a stern look. "Robin, would you mind checking?" He sighs and stands, leaving behind his chair in the living room to go check on the salmon en croute that's likely at least five more minutes away from being cooked through.

"Thank you, Mr. Locksley," Cora adds, managing to be somehow both simpering and dismissive, as though she and Regina are having dinner together, and he's the butler.

"Robin," he corrects with a terse smile, bending to kiss Regina's cheek on his way out. He doesn't have to look to imagine Cora's frown, but, well, tough luck for her.

The kitchen opens into a small dining area, already set for three, and the living room's just to the left, still within sight as he dutifully removes the salad from the refrigerator and peeks at the fish.

Regina brings her mother to sit at the table and offers a second glass of wine.

"Hey," Regina murmurs in a low voice, joining him so that she can retrieve the Chardonnay and grab a match to light the candles on the table. "Just-don't let her get to you, all right? I'm fine."

"I didn't start it," he sing-songs under his breath.

"Robin, please?"

"Fine," he agrees.

"Thank you," she runs a hand across his shoulder and down his back. "Love you."

"Mm. Do you want to plate the fish, or-"

"Regina, dear?"

"Hold on," Regina murmurs to him, her hand falling away. "Yes, Mother?" she calls.

"You haven't asked me about your father yet."

"You do it," Regina rushes out, stepping out of the kitchen, heels clacking against the floor. "We spoke about him on the phone just this morning," Robin hears her say as he grabs a lemon and begins to slice it into wedges.

"Don't you care to know if anything's changed?"

Robin's hand tightens around the knife.

"I assumed you would tell me," Regina answers smoothly. Robin smirks as he reaches above the stove for a serving dish.

He hears the sound of wine being poured as he plucks a few sprigs of dill from a plant in the window. "The doctors don't tell me anything, you know," Cora continues, "it's so hard to understand why he has to stay there so much longer than they'd planned."

"Daddy's very sick, Mother," Regina answers, speaking as though to the petulant child Cora makes herself into for these conversations, "sometimes, they don't know exactly what's going to happen."

Robin drizzles olive oil and red wine vinegar onto the salad, mixing it gently with a spoon as he listens. Nothing could ever explain Regina's relationship with each of her parents more, he muses with a frown, than the names she has always called them. Mother, for the cold and demanding woman who couldn't bear the intimacy of Mum; and Daddy, for the spineless father who loves her deeply but never would stand between the overbearing woman in his life, and the kind one.

They lapse into silence, and Robin opens the oven door to find that their main course looks done. Good, then. They can eat, and be done with this.

Robin walks in a couple of minutes later carrying the salmon, arranged on white ceramic with dill and lemon, then returns for the salad, and sets it at the end of the table, offering to serve Cora first.

"These roses, Regina," she begins as she folds and refolds her napkin across her lap, "they are very beautiful. Where did you get them?"

"I grew them," Robin answers as he takes his seat across from Regina at the square table. They are Regina's favorites: deep red, warm peach, and delicate cream in a small bouquet.

"What, here?"

"No. In one of my client's gardens."

"You bring them home?" she asks, clearly surprised.

"Some. He has far more than he could want, or than the garden needs."

"Ah," Cora replies, her voice flat, as though she'd been expecting him to say that he stole them.

"You should see the garden itself, Mother. It's lovely, even this time of year, and Robin designed most of the landscaping."

"You're _friends_ with some of these clients?" Cora asks, the prim facade she places over the words doing little to cover her stunned disapproval.

"Yes," Regina adds softly.

Robin bites his lip against a grimace in expectation of Cora's response, and sure enough she quickly turns the conversation back towards a topic more agreeable to her ends.

"You know, the Eastons's son is a proper architect. He designs skyscrapers. Corporate buildings, government, that sort of thing. He just broke up with his girlfriend, it seems, poor dear. You would like him, Regina. He's very bright, and competitive. Definitely going places."

Robin cannot help the scoff that escapes his lips, but Regina beats him to a verbal response.

"I'm taken."

"Regina, you're always imagining I mean things that I do not. I only meant that he's a very nice boy."

"I don't think I am, Mother. Drop it, please."

A defeated sigh. "Very well."

Robin bites his lip again to hide a faint grin of triumph. The arguing he can take. It's when Regina's completely cowed by her mother that he worries and angers.

"How was rehearsal today?" he asks. He's nearing the end of the food on his plate, and staring down the not-so-distant time when there won't even be the sound of cutlery on china to fill the silence.

"Fine," Regina answers once she's swallowed her sip of wine. "Better than yesterday, certainly. The Beethoven really came together today. We got the balance right."

"Good," he replies with a soft smile at her across the table. He's about to ask another question, perhaps about which performance she thinks it might be best for him to attend, when Cora interrupts them.

"Oh, My Dear, I do hate to think of you working so hard just to play this instrument with...thirty other people. It seems like such a waste of your talents and energies. I mean, you're wasting your time, Dear. Playing the violin and dating the boy you played with when you were a little girl? Don't you think you've outgrown them? I hate to see you throw away your ambitions like this."

Robin's hands curl into fists that only tighten when his glance at Regina confirms that she's too angry, too hurt to speak, her lips pursed and eyes dark.

Cora looks between them. "I'm sorry, did I say something untoward? I merely meant to express my concern for my daughter."

Cora cuts another small bite of her salmon, pushing the dill she probably suspects him of growing to the side as if it's poison, and smiling a fake, easy smile.

Robin looks to Regina, who has dropped her fork with a quiet clink and is now staring into her lap, a single tear falling down one cheek, unnoticed. Robin reaches for her hand beneath the table, but finds her fingers limp and unmoving, every part of her tense and resigned at the same time. He wonders for a moment what it would be best to do. Right up until the moment he sees Cora noticing the same things as him, the same tense set of Regina's jaw and resigned slouch of her shoulders, the same tears escaping more and more freely despite her best efforts, and watches his love's mother grin, eyes bright and lips curved up, at her own daughter's distress.

"Ms. Mills," Robin finally begins, turning to her, "I'm sorry, but I have to say this." He feels the physical weight of it as they both turn to look at him, and suddenly every instant of anger he's felt at this woman this evening, and perhaps for long before that, collapses into one. "Your daughter is a brilliant musician. The musical community agrees. When she was eight years old, her _teacher_ told you she had a special gift for it." He takes a breath, his voice growing louder. " I've been to at least one performance of everything she's been in this past year, which is more than can be said for you, even when she was a _child._ But more importantly, it makes her _happy_ , as does being with me, which you would know if you ever bothered to give me an honest chance. And your daughter's happiness—doesn't that seem like what _you_ should care about, if you love her as much as you claim to when you come into her home and tell her all of the things you think she's doing wrong?"

"Mr. Locksley."

" _Robin_."

"Mr. Locksley. I don't know from where you get the nerve to tell me how I should behave around my own child."

"That's not what he was saying, Mother, he-"

"And you're defending him, too, now?"

"I think he meant that-"

"I meant exactly what I said," Robin interrupts, meeting Cora's eyes dead on.

"Well, if you don't want to hear such reasonable suggestions from your _own mother_ ," she continues, feigning hurt she could not possibly feel as she looks at her daughter, "then I'm not sure what to say."

"Then stop," Robin says, voice low and angry. "That's enough."

Cora looks between them, flustered, furious, and then she's pushing back her chair and making her way to the door. "Well, as I can see my presence is no longer required here, I will leave you." She places a hand on Regina's cheek for a moment. "Think about what I said, will you." She turns to Robin for a cold, "Goodnight," then back to Regina, a sickeningly pitying frown on her face. "Goodnight, Dear."

Once Cora is out of sight, Robin is stacking their empty plates angrily, downing the remnants of his wine in the process.

Regina turns on him the second the door has clicked shut. "What were you thinking?" she demands.

"More than she was, obviously."

"Robin, you just drove my _mother_ out of the house."

"She had finished eating. She left," he points out, heading into the kitchen with a stack of plates.

"After what you said, of course she did!" she cries, following him.

"Defending you, you mean." He sets his plates in the sink, taking the empty wine glasses from her hands and adding them to the pile.

"Yes, from having a normal evening with her that didn't end in disaster."

He bends to open the dishwasher. "Oh right, because the last one went so well."

"Robin!"

"What?"

She steps around him and turns on the sink, rinsing the remnants of food from the plates. "I would _prefer_ if she didn't hate you."

"Well I don't know how this could possibly be news to you Regina, but she already does. She has since the moment you wandered into the servant's quarters and I dared to become your friend."

Regina pauses with her clenched hands hovering over the next dish, and turns to him to answer. "She's upset about my father."

Robin scoffs. "Like she hasn't always done this."

"I handled my relationship with my mother for _years_ without you."

Robin grabs the dishes as she hands them to him, placing them in the dishwasher less carefully than he probably should. "Well, I'm trying to help."

"How chivalrous. Since you always know best."

Robin stands, giving up any pretense of getting things done while they're having this fight. She turns off the water. He dries his hands on a tea towel, then passes it to her, waiting until she looks at him again, trembling with frustration. "I apologize for actually giving a damn, Regina." His voice is nastier than it should be; nastier than he'd meant.

She returns it. "I don't think you need to. This is none of your business."

"I think that if we're going to do this, if both she and I are going to be part of your life, then it is."

She shakes her head, pushing past him.

"Damn it, Regina you can't just run away when we argue. You can't _leave_ while we're talking about this."

She spins back to face him. "Oh, right because running—that's what _you_ do."

" _What?_ "

"You couldn't wait two weeks, could you? You kissed me, and suddenly you had gotten a job on the other side of the country and hadn't even said goodbye."

He walks towards her. "Is _that_ what this is about? I've tried to talk about that ever since we found each other again." He's spoken of their separation so many times he cannot remember them all. With gentle teasing and subtle references and pointed, serious remarks. He's tried to ask her how she felt about it when they were out to dinner for their six-month anniversary, and when he'd cried after she absent-mindedly began to play the melody from the piece she'd been playing when they first kissed, all those years ago. He's whispered in her ear how glad he was that they'd found each other, with his palms tracing her sweaty, sated body, and he'd growled the words into her lips while he was buried inside her, because even if the thought of that discussion scares her, he couldn't resist. And yet she has always, always changed the subject, evaded the question, pretended that it doesn't still hurt both of them the way he knows it does. He finds himself suddenly determined to have this conversation. Now.

His voice is oddly calm as he continues. "Regina, you took the offer from Cambridge. You were leaving in a couple of months to study economics, anyway."

"So you decided you'd leave me first." Her voice cracks, her eyes wide.

He steps a foot closer, tears burning the back of his eyes. "It's not like you tried to stop me."

"I called you!" She takes a large step, closing half the distance between them. "I called you and left a message after you left and you never—"

"It was too hard. I missed you so much; I couldn't bear to hear you telling me that it was for the best, that—I was young, I was stupid, Regina, please, I—I was afraid."

" _You_ were afraid?" Her eyes are bright, hurt, angry. "And how do you think _I_ felt, with you running away like it was a mistake, like our friendship didn't mean _anything_ anymore."

"This isn't about what she said, is it? About living in the past?"

"What?" she cries. "Of course not. How could you think that I would-?"

"-and yet you won't let me defend what we have to your mother? Regina, you cannot just allow your mother to tear us apart over the past every time we see her. We decided to do this."

It slips out of her, venomous. "Well maybe we shouldn't have."

He falters, stung. "You don't mean that."

She swallows, and remains silent. He imagines himself softening her, as he always has. Even when they were young. He'll venture a quiet repetition of her name, a tentative finger tracing her cheekbone, fingers slipping into her hair. A still patience until she's ready to lean into him and be comforted. But in this moment all he can think is how many times he could've done so if they'd never been apart, and how she stopped them from it, and he feels suddenly helpless, and weary. Perhaps, he finds himself wondering bitterly, dread settling in his stomach, perhaps all he's ever done when he's drawn her into him for comfort is prolong something that should've been let go years ago. She has asked how he could think her mother just influenced her certainty about their relationship, but he truly has to wonder how he could think anything else. "Regina," he tries, nevertheless, reaching out a trembling hand. She turns away from him, and suddenly he is not hurt but angry. At Cora, at her. At himself. At architects and successful business women and salmon en croute and pale peach roses. His arm shifts away from her, then falls limp at his side.

"You know what, I'm tired of this. You have to speak up for the things you want. You did it for that damned violin. If you aren't willing to do it for me then maybe this isn't what we should be doing, anyway." Exhaustion wars with anger, and deep down a sinking sensation that he's indulging in emotions he'll regret later. But not now. "I'll see you later."

He grabs his jacket from its hook, yanking it onto his arms. He glances back once, his hand hovering over the doorknob. She doesn't say anything, and she is curled into herself, her face hidden behind one hand. He pulls the door open, and leaves.

Regina does not move until long after the door has shut behind Robin. She stands there, one hand covering her eyes, her arm limp and heavy in the air, the other looped tightly around her waist. For a few moments, all she feels is rage.

He has _no_ right to interfere like this, and after he did, he apparently thinks so little of her that he chalked up all of her frustrations to her agreeing with Cora's opinion of him.

As if she is so similar to her mother. And as if completely ignoring her is an easy and painless option.

But as she stands there, her hand grasping tighter and tighter at her ribs, their angry words echoing over and over again, what she begins to recall is the tears he'd shed over many of them, and the pain in his eyes, and the barely perceptible tremble in his jaw.

She knows him well enough to admit that he wouldn't make those accusations flippantly, that he wouldn't accuse her of listening to Cora just to hurt her, and that his put-together demeanor often hides deeper insecurities.

He must really feel like that.

How cruel must she be if she has moved someone as kind as him, as easily moved by a soft word or touch to hum an _I love you_ or kiss her cheek, to doubt her? She's not good for him. She never has been. She sees their past in a different light, and suddenly what she remembers, instead of him moving away all of those years ago, is her running from their first kiss, and avoiding him every day after. She remembers that _he_ was the one to come and find her a year ago, and what she sees now is everyone's hurt and disappointment. Robin's, and Mother's, and Daddy's, even. She hurts them, no matter what she does, no matter how much she loves them. And yet if they left. If...when Robin left, it would break her beyond repair.

She sinks into a dining room chair, silent tears giving way to crying she cannot control no matter how hard she presses her face into her arms on the table. She has to do something to stop this. To stop all of it.

When she has worn herself out beyond the ability to cry, the deafening silence of the room, the ticking clock and settling pipes and occasional sounds of traffic drop her into fitful and broken moments of sleep.

"Hey," Robin murmurs, squatting beside Regina where she rests on one of the dining room chairs.

She blinks as she lifts her head from her arms and smoothes down her hair. "You came back."

"Of course."

She cups his jaw, her eyes damp, and he turns to press a kiss to her palm. "Look, I-"

"I-" Robin breaks off as they speak over each other and nods. "Go ahead."

"I think we need some space," she says, her thumb stroking along his jaw, trembling. "For a while."

"I didn't mean to…" He searches for words to explain, that somehow he'd been indulging in the very same doubts he'd accused her of having, that he doesn't know what else he can say, what else he can do to convince her of the way he sees her, even when she cannot see it herself.

"I know." She takes her hand away, and the loss of it is physical enough to be a touch as well. "We both said things we didn't mean. But that's just it. I think we need to think about whether this is what we-what we want."

He gathers up her hand in an instant, pressing it to his cheek. "It is. For me, it is."

She smiles almost sleepily and sweeps a few fingers across his anxiously wrinkled forehead. "We'll see."

"But I-but-are you certain you're all right?"

"Please, Robin?" He looks into her weary eyes, and his protest dies off.

"All right," he agrees, frowning. "All right."

"You don't have to leave right now; it's late."

"I know. I think it's probably best, though." Robin clears his throat, shakily wiping the back of his hand across his eyes, every fear they'd dragged to the surface this evening twisting tightly around his heart once more. "It's all right. John'll still be up."

Regina squeezes his hand, and he cannot help his rough whisper. "Can I kiss you?"

She nods, and then he's leaning forward slowly, almost carefully, his lips meeting her forehead, her cheek, her eyelids as they flutter closed. He pulls back for a moment, one hand sliding into her hair and tilting her head back, and then he presses his lips to hers, softly at first until she sighs and leans into it.

They separate a moment later with regretful sighs, hers stifled and covered by a heartbreaking glimpse of despair.

"You'll call me tomorrow?" he pleads, easing his hand out of her hair."I'll call you soon," she amends with a trembling voice, squeezing his hand and heading towards the kitchen with the last of the dishes from their dinner.


	8. A Tempo, Part 2

Side note for my British (or British English speaking) friends. I'm American, obviously. And my English is American. But I'm trying (my best) not to have these characters in London use jarringly American terms (i.e. apartment rather than flat) so I've done my best to make the dialogue fit that. Apologies because I'm sure you can see through it, but hopefully you'll cringe fewer times? Not that this comes up, but in my head Cora's American and Regina has spent a lot of time there, so she uses American and British terms both.

(Sorry this took me so long.)

Chapter 2

"I still don't understand why you don't call her."

Robin looks up from his eighth concept sketch for the new art museum's grounds. It's looking unlikely that he'll have the planned proposal to them on Wednesday, or at least not one he's satisfied with. "She's not lost my number."

John raises an eyebrow at him. "And it's a one-way street, this phone thing."

Robin sighs heavily. "I would call her if I thought it would solve anything."

"But?" He prompts.

"She said she'd call, when she's ready. Don't think she needs any more pressure from me." Robin's teeth dig into his lower lip. "She'd clearly had enough of that last night."

"What did you fight about, then?"

"I dunno—a few things. Her mother. Our past, mostly. _That,_ I've been trying to bring up for ages, but yesterday it all sort of…imploded."

John slides into a kitchen stool beside him and selects an apple from the counter. "You've always sparred, though. You're not exactly a pair of easy-going personalities."

Robin lets out a short laugh despite himself.

It's something John knows from experience. He and Robin have been roommates for five years now, since long before Regina came back into his life. It had been quite a laugh, really, when Robin had introduced him to Regina last year, and his friend had realized that it was _that_ Regina.

"Not about this," he shakes his head, sobering. "Not _real_ fights. When we first got together, we slipped into all of this so easily and we _never_ talked about it. But now…" He adds pointless extra lines on his sketch to thicken the border of the building, then looks up at his friend. "She wanted some time to think things through. Decide if this is what we—" his voice struggles slightly over the words, his hand flexing around his pencil—"what she really wants."

John tosses the apple to the opposite hand and takes a large bite, staring at his friend with an expectantly raised eyebrow and a voice almost dismissively certain. "You're an idiot if you think it's not."

" I dunno; maybe she'd have an easier time with a fresh start. She didn't have the best of teenage years, or childhood for that matter, and I'm a constant reminder."

"You don't really believe that."

"No. I don't." Robin makes a decisive line through his paper, crossing it out and abandoning it like the last seven drafts. They sit for several minutes, and the only sound is an emphatic crunch as John makes quick work of the rest of his apple, and drops a few pieces of post that he'd been carrying in onto the counter.

"I'm sorry," he tells John with his lips half-turned into a frown. "I know I've not been much company today."

"You've been in better moods," John agrees. "Still, it's an improvement on when I first met you, and her mother had shipped her off to study business and marketing or whatever."

Robin laughs mirthlessly. "She dropped out after one term, you know. Took the money from all the gigs she'd played as a kid and enrolled herself in music school instead. She'd probably already quit by the time I told you the story."

John looks up at him from the mail that he'd been casually paging through.

"What?"

"Before you continue to wax poetic about your girlfriend," John tosses his apple core in the garbage and brushes off his hands, "I have the perfect thing to lighten your mood."

"I do _not_ wax poetic—" John's laughter cuts him off.

Robin glares as his friend laughs over his protestations.

John pushes an envelope toward him that has Robin's name and their address scrawled on the front in cursive type. "Looks like it's from the symphony."

Sure enough, a single ticket to tomorrow's matinee is tucked inside, with his name printed across a receipt that shows it's a discounted ticket for an orchestra member.

John chuckles knowingly. "The pair of you are ridiculous. I hope you know that."

Robin picks up the ticket, the sharp edge of his hurt, his anxiety, softened.

John, ever eager to tease anyone who needs it, casts comically exaggerated glances around the apartment. "So, what're you thinking you'll find around here to wear?"

"There are a _few_ things in the front closet still," Robin insists.

John chuckles. "I'd wondered about that. Looked too small to be mine."

Robin's lips quirk into half a smile, despite his every effort not to give in to his friend's transparent attempts to cheer him up. "Oh come off it. I still pay my share of the rent."

"Well, not that I don't like having you around, and _love_ having your rent contribution, but do this right tomorrow, would you? You two are good together."

"Yeah," Robin's smile grows more sure. "I know."

.

.

.

Robin glances down at his wrist. The hall has cleared out substantially in the five minutes since he last checked the time, but, as is his habit, he's remained in his seat while the rest of the concert-goers made their way to the exits. There's no point, he's always reasoned, in being the first to the lobby, when Regina always needs a few minutes to gather her things anyway.

He's always liked theaters like this too, in the quiet, bright lull between concerts. It feels private, somehow; only his own. In some ways, it is not unlike the sensation of knowledge and belonging that he feels when stepping into a garden he's helped to grow; the familiarity with dirt and mulch and leaves in a landscape that looks, from a distance, to be almost unknowable. And of course, it has always reminded him of how he sees Regina, past the well-ordered surface of her expressions and words and actions and into the intricate spaces that lie beneath.

That intimate feeling of the empty theater strikes him with particular poignancy today.

He looks up from his wrist to the stage, wondering if she'll reappear there, or in the lobby, and then takes stock of the hall once more. At this point, there are only ten or twelve people left. The lobby is probably a safer bet. He's just stood from his red velvet chair and turned to gather his jacket and scarf from the crevice of the folding seat when a hand brushes his shoulder, featherlight and familiar.

"Hi," she says, her voice rough over the word with the hundred others she has enveloped in the simple greeting. "You came."

A shiver runs up his spine, warm and pleasant, as he turns to face her. "I always come, don't I?"

She takes his breath away; truly she does. The flush on her cheeks from the warm stage lights; the strands of dark hair escaping her braid; the bright glint in her eyes from the delight of playing; the way that she eagerly and yet carefully searches his features. And beneath it all a determination that makes him ache for her.

A couple and their daughter excuse their way around Regina in the aisle, drawing their attention away for a moment. The little girl points excitedly at Regina's black trousers and blouse and the violin case held in one of her hands. Regina notices and turns to wave hello at the girl, who can't be more than seven or eight, and the girl waves back excitedly from the theater door, a shy blush on her cheeks.

When they turn back to each other, they are both smiling lightly, some of the tension broken by familiarity.

Robin tries to fathom the individual emotions that flicker through her eyes, but his glimpses are too brief, and her thoughts an engaging labyrinth in which he could easily lose himself.

Regina looks as though she's taking stock of him as well, and the comfortable intimacy of it reminds him how much better they _do_ know each other than when they were children, how much closer they've grown to be in this past year. He can't resist catching hold of her hand and squeezing it gently.

She clears her throat as two people wearing black jeans and polos begin to walk through the hall with garbage bags and cleaning cloths. "I'm going to change, and then I was planning on a walk. If you're interested."

Robin takes a deep breath, and exhales with it some of the stress of the past few days. "Of course."

She smiles back, squeezing his hand and then letting go. "I'll find you in the lobby in ten minutes."

And after one last look, inscrutable and yet tender, she turns and walks away.

.

.

.

"So, which way?" Robin asks when they reach the main road.

It is only half past five, but it is so dark this time of year that it feels later. Streetlights reflect starkly against the damp sidewalks, and the crisp sound of vehicles running through shallow puddles confirms that it must have rained while they were inside the theater.

Regina turns to look at him, more completely than she had when they'd stepped out of the theater and into the damp February night.

The eye contact settles pleasantly in his stomach.

She's slung her violin case over her shoulder with its multiple layers of protective and waterproof covers. Her hair is still in braids, but she's exchanged her black slacks for jeans, and her blouse for a cozy knit and jacket, and a softly patterned scarf that he remembers is cobalt blue, but that looks more muted in the half-light. Her eyes are as much of a contradiction as ever, at once bright and sad.

She blinks slowly, heavily. "Let's head toward the park."

Robin agrees and falls into step beside her as they head left, and for the next couple of minutes, their silence is slightly awkward, but not tense. They turn to each other as they cross onto a quieter street, where there are fewer people around them.

"I—"

"Could—"

They laugh, eyes meeting as he nods for her to continue.

"I'm sorry about Friday," she pushes on.

"I'm sorry as well," he tells her fervently.

"I didn't mean what I said about you, about us."

He takes a deep breath and breathes it out slowly, allowing his shoulders to relax and his hand to reach between them for hers. _Thank God_ , he thinks, surprising himself a little with the force of his relief, when he'd known— _known,_ as surely as he knows every fleck in her brown eyes, that she hadn't.

She stops them in the half-light of a street lamp, threading their fingers together firmly.

"What is it?"

She searches his face determinedly, and he wonders what she sees in it, that has brought on this reaction.

She shakes her head and tugs him closer to her with their joined hands.

"Regina?" he asks again.

Her hand slides from his onto his wrist, her fingers pressing into his pulse. "I _do_ want this."

"I knew that, love. I know that."

Her lips turn into a half-frown of mild disbelief. "Do you?"

His brow furrows. "Where's this coming from?"

"You were right," she says forcefully. "I run away. Not—not like you said." She blinks rapidly, her gaze falling briefly to their joined hands. "I don't just leave. But I can be so cold, so cruel, so stubborn—it pushes everyone away eventually, even if it isn't what I mean or _want_ and—"

"Regina Mills," he tells her, his tone light but earnest, as he gathers up her hands and presses them to his chest, "that is _not_ possible." He lowers his forehead to hers, holding eye contact until it becomes impossible. His eyes fall shut as their skin touches, and he feels her lean into him, even as another tear falls between them. He always underestimates it, he thinks. Her ability to wander into a maze of self-hatred, and lose herself in it. He taps fingers against the back of her hand lightly, teasingly. "I am _far_ too stubborn for you to get rid of me."

She lets out a sound somewhere between a scoff and a relieved laugh.

He rubs a thumb over her hand, mapping out her skin to the easy cadence of their breathing, and shielding her bare, calloused fingers from the damp night. He does not speak for several moments, and when he does, his voice is soft and unobtrusive, a low hum.

"Do you know what I was thinking when we first saw each other again?"

She shakes her head against his skin.

"I walked into the green room, and knew your playing the moment I heard it. Your eyes were on fire," he sweeps a thumb across her temple. "And I couldn't believe that I had convinced myself you would be anywhere else. As if you could've been stopped from playing that violin." He threads fingers through her hair. "You can be…hard, sometimes, but it also makes you brave and fierce and stubborn and incredibly kind. Don't sell yourself so short."

"You're an idiot," she says, fondly. She leans into him, shaking her head without any real force behind it.

"I was angry, too, about everything I'd missed. All those years." He nudges her shoulder with his. "Cora's fury when you broke the news about music school."

He smiles that he's finally made her laugh.

She always tenses up, changes the subject when he brings up that time, but he finds to his relief that today seems different.

"I used to hope you'd stumble into a concert somehow," she clears her throat, "and I'd see you again. I'd convinced myself that I just wanted to apologize, to see you one last time on better terms. I think deep down, I was hoping that wouldn't be all." Robin plays with her fingers absent-mindedly, tracing lines and joints with his thumb. "It certainly wasn't all after we'd spent twenty minutes together."

He grins in remembrance of that evening when he'd come to her concert. The scales and runs she'd been fiddling with before putting her violin away. The way they'd broken off when he knocked on the dressing room and asked to enter. His pounding heart. The neutral expression on her face that had melted, second by second, as they stared at each other. The invitation to coffee next week that had quickly, if awkwardly, transformed into a plan of finding somewhere still open that same night.

"Speaking of," she asks, tugging him with her as they resume their walk at a slow pace, "how did you get backstage?"

"Oh, I sweet talked a guard who liked you. Told him we were old friends, and I wanted to surprise you."

"Thomas," she surmises, laughing. "How have I never thought of that before?"

"I don't know about you, but I was a bit distracted."

"Mm. I suppose we had more to catch up on than that. Five whole years."

He tilts his head curiously. "So you knew nothing about me, hm? No internet stalking or anything?"

"I thought about it," she admits. "But something always stopped me. I don't know. I think I was afraid of how you might've changed."

"Me? _Never_."

She laughs lightly, shaking her head. "You could've moved somewhere far away. Had a completely different life. You could've been with someone, Robin. You could've been _married_ , or…"

"Come on, me?"

She shifts her hand in his, her voice quieter. "I think I was also…"

He pushes down the impulse to press her and waits for her to finish on her own.

"I was afraid that I would see you, and we _would_ still fit. I know that makes no sense."

Robin thinks about how deeply he already felt for her in those early weeks of their relationship, about how quickly they became woven into each others' lives. About how wonderful and yet impossible it all felt. "It makes sense to me."

She clears her throat as though to dispel the thought. "And what was your excuse?"

He glances at her as they pass a 24-hour Tesco's with lights that are glaringly white against the dark night, and catches a more complete look at her features.

"What?" she encourages.

"It would've made me so sad if you'd become, well, what your mother wanted you to be. Regina Mills, Vice President of Business Development at some big company, and most eligible twenty-something at every auspicious social occasion."

A laugh bursts through Regina's lips, and he glares at her with a glint in his eye.

"Seriously though, I knew none of that would've made you truly happy. But I was worried you might've—"

"—given in?"

"Yes."

She looks at him, tilting her head as though she's noticing something she'd never seen before. "What did you imagine that phone message said? The one I left you after you moved away? The one you never listened to?"

He takes a heavy breath, lost in her gaze, feeling anxiety slither back into his stomach, much like it did on the day they're discussing, so many years ago.

"Robin," she urges.

"You called me to explain why we couldn't be together, didn't you? Why it was a mistake. Why you had to leave."

She laughs, her voice just a little bit broken. "You really are such an idiot."

"Why?" A jumble of curiosity, hope, regret spreads through his chest.

Her expression sobers, though her eyes remain light. "I was going to do that, you're right. I thought it would be easier for you, if you thought it wasn't an option. I thought you'd move on. But when I got to your voicemail, and I heard your voice, I couldn't do it. I asked you to come visit me at school."

" _That's_ what you—but—"

"And when you never got back to me, when you never came, I figured—"

"I didn't want to."

"Yes."

His mouth is still hanging open somewhat. All of these years, and _that_ was what she'd called him to say?

"Robin?"

"Sorry, I'm just—processing this."

"If I'd known it was so important to you, I would've told you sooner."

"Yeah. Would've been nice, that."

"What did you want me to do," she teases, nudging an elbow into his ribs, "leave you a second message explaining why you should listen to the first one?"

He rubs both hands over his face. "Ugh, I'm an _idiot_."

Regina laughs. "We both are, I suppose. I could've called again. You could've stuck around to see me give up on Cambridge after three months. In our defense, though, we _were_ kids. And just think, if Tuck hadn't dragged you to that _particular_ concert to get you out of the house, and I hadn't been playing on that _particular_ night, we might never have known."

It starts off as a teasing remark, but doesn't end that way.

"I like to think our paths were bound to cross eventually. Although I know you'll tease me for saying that."

She shakes her head and squeezes his hand more tightly. "Not today."

He smiles warmly at her in the dim light. "I left because I…wanted it to be easier for both of us. You had decided to go to school like your mother wanted, and I didn't want either of us to have to watch our relationship drift apart. To become more and more distant until all we could see in each other was my employer's daughter and your gardener's son." He tries not to tear up as they both come to a temporary pause in their walk, this time just past a small coffee shop that's closing for the night, its last few patrons closing up books and laptops and filtering out into the night. She searches his eyes for several seconds, hers open and thoughtful and sad.

"We could _never_ be that."

"I know that, now. But back then, it felt like it was the only thing that made sense."

"You know me." She sighs, "You must know I've never cared about that. Mother gets in my head sometimes, but that doesn't mean it could ever change how I see you."

"I know. It's not that really, it's just-I hear your mother saying all of those things about what your life would be like without me, and I-"

"-you worry, somehow, that someday I'll listen to them and leave you alone again on a piano bench rather than kissing you back."

"That would be one way to put it."

Regina's upper teeth dig into her lip, and he wonders if she knows that she's picked up the habit from him. "I suppose she gets to both of us sometimes."

Robin frowns. "I suppose."

"Well," she insists, "for one thing, it's not just you." She jostles their joined hands. "I am a musician because I want to be, even though she's never approved." Her expression grows more serious. "But, Robin, I _love_ you. And I know you've always thought that you're nothing special, but you are to me. You always have been."

"Thank you," he whispers, squeezing her hand, a kind of fire he's only ever known with her washing through him and warming his body despite the chill.

"Oh, get _over_ yourself," she says gently, teasingly, sliding one hand along his jaw. "I've chosen to be with you. I did the moment you walked into that dressing room and almost made me drop my poor violin. You _know_ that, even though you were a thorough idiot about it and made yourself horribly jealous of Jefferson."

"You seemed _close_ ," he protests weakly.

Regina laughs.

"You kissed some sense into me, at least."

She grins. "Yes, I did. Selfless creature that I am."

"Mm. Stubborn, as well."

Regina sweeps her thumb along his jaw. "Seriously, though. You know how much I love you, right?"

He leans into her touch. "I do. It's still nice to hear."

"And for the record, when you came into that dressing room, after that concert?" she begins, grinning.

"Yeah?"

She runs a finger over his lips to silence him. "Even though I almost didn't recognize you with all of that scruff."

"Beard," he argues.

She smiles. "Scruff, sweetheart." She follows the line of his cheekbone, then circles his right eye, her pointer finger sweeping up the bridge of his nose, across his eyebrow, below his eye. He shivers. "You had the same kind eyes that I remembered." She sweeps her thumb across his lips, swallowing heavily. "And I really, really wanted to kiss you."

"Shame you didn't," he murmurs, squeezing her hand, searching her eyes.

She bends forward slowly to cross the scant space between them. A muffled groan rises to his lips, and she hums in response, pressing closer, tilting her head to deepen the kiss, one of her hands still tangled with his and squeezing tightly.

For all of the desperation of his pounding heart, the kiss itself is slow, their lips slanting over each other, fitting together as his hand slides onto her side, between her back and the violin she still carries.

How, how on _earth_ , could either of them imagine for one moment that they would rather live without this?

When his tongue swipes against hers, she lets out a muffled whimper, and his breath hitches as her nails score across his shoulders, his head spinning. It's been only a few days since they last kissed, but this feels different somehow, like something _more._ She presses up into his body as much as she can with the coats and scarves and violin in their way, and they're past the point when they should probably have found somewhere a bit more private, and he'd really, _really_ love it if her violin was somewhere else right now, but he also doesn't really care, so in love as he is with the girl who was too afraid to kiss him back so many years ago, and even more in love with the woman who is kissing him now.

"When you kissed me, that first time…" she begins to ask when they finally break apart, both of their faces flushed, their hot breaths visible in the chill, damp air, and their thoughts clearly turned in similar directions.

"When we went for that walk through Kensington Gardens?"

'No."

"Good, because I believe it was you who—" he sighs as she lifts one of his hands to her lips and presses a kiss to his wrist, her lips pleasantly warm against the cool skin, "—kissed me."

"I know," she hums. "I meant the _real_ first time."

They start to walk again, and he notes, absently, that they are perhaps only a couple of blocks from her flat. They've never properly talked about this, not ever, that night when they were eighteen and both about to move away from home and kissed for a few brief seconds in the music room where the resonant notes that had induced him to finally kiss her had barely begun to fade.

She looks into his eyes again. "What were you thinking, then?"

He swallows and searches for the right way to explain, determined to give this woman who has trusted him enough to let her guard down the real answer, and not merely a teasing one. He thinks back to that day, to the knowledge that they both might be leaving soon, and the quiet evening they'd spent in the music room her father had built for her in the basement. Regina had been practicing while Robin lounged on a chair with a book. He recalls in great detail the nocturne that she'd been working on, and that he'd long since stopped reading so that he could listen to her play it. And though the kiss itself had been fleeting, distinct flashes of memory have always stuck with him. Her exultant smile when she'd finally played the hardest passage through without mistakes. The softness of the carpet in the two strides it had taken to reach her. The clatter of her bow against her violin as he'd pressed his lips against hers and her fingers had grown lax. Her surprised gasp against his lips, and the way it had morphed into a moan as she'd tangled a hand in his shirt. The instant he'd known everything had gone wrong, when she'd pulled away with tears in her eyes and the words _I'm sorry_ taking shape on her lips as she'd fled the room.

"I finally saw what was right in front of me," he tells her, reaching to brush a stray hair off of her forehead, his hand lingering as he speaks. "I'd known for ages, I think, deep down. But at that moment your heart touched that music, and I wanted to show you how much it had touched mine."

"You're such a sap," she accuses half-heartedly, though a smile curves her lips.

"Always was," he insists, tapping his thumb gently against her hand. "You are, too, you know."

"I am not."

He emphasizes the cadence of his voice, as though speaking to a captive theater audience. "Regina Mills, the famous concert violinist who searched every audience in vain, hoping that one day, her long lost friend would be among them."

She groans. "When you say it like that, it sounds pathetic."

They laugh gently together as they both turn onto the street that leads to her building without discussing it.

"I didn't have to look for you today," she adds. "I knew you'd come."

"See, there you go make my point. Sap."

"You're infuriating," she decides.

"You know it."

They both come to a stop at her door. "I can't keep carrying this," she shrugs to indicate the violin strapped to her back, then meets his gaze with steady determination, "but I want you to stay."

He grins, catching her lips in a quick kiss, and moves to follow her through the door.

.

.

.

Regina knows that she should give in to her drooping eyes and go back to sleep. She won't be thanking herself for this when she's trying to make it through the chamber rehearsal and concert tomorrow. But even though she is tired and comfortable, she is also loathe to fully close her eyes.

She's enjoying the in-between, the simple pleasure of being not-quite-asleep, with her body worn from a busy day and her whirring thoughts stilled into a quiet. She hears the splash of water as cars drive by outside, the occasional hum of a far distant voice, and she feels the weight of the rain-damp air and the rhythmic pressure of Robin's lungs as they fill and empty against her back. They'd both fallen asleep on the sofa a while ago, it seems, and the thought of either waking him or moving to the other room is far less appealing than remaining exactly where she is.

If she wasn't lulled into such peaceful quiet, if it hadn't just caused so much heartache this weekend, she could almost laugh at the pair of them. This conversation that she'd dreaded for so long, not out of fear, necessarily, or shame, or stubbornness—none of those words capture it, not quite—it had been so different than had she expected. Not only because they'd both made assumptions that now look objectively ridiculous, but because, if anything, she feels closer to him, having had it.

Though she had barely recognized it consciously, she had always imagined him to regret that he had acted on his feelings when they were younger. Now she sees him regretting only that, as he assumed, she could not be open to it, and never would be. She had always thought that he had left back then because she had given up too easily, on him, them, music; had read his somber mood upon her telling him about her offer from Cambridge as a reflection of his disappointment in her. How unfair that had been, she finally realizes; what an underestimation of the depths to which they both know each other, and of his own feelings.

She finds his hand on her hip and drags his arm more firmly around her, feeling a rush of tenderness that makes her sag into the soft sofa cushions, and she finally allows her eyes to flutter closed.

.

.

.

 _Zzzzzt. Zzzzzzt._

Regina groans, reaching blindly for her phone. She isn't certain of course, but it feels as though she'd just closed her eyes a moment ago. Her left hand lights on the cushions, the coffee table, on Robin's chest. She realizes that her legs are half trapped under his and disentangles them carefully, sliding into a sitting position and looking around for the light of her phone screen as the call goes to voicemail, and her phone immediately starts ringing again. She finally sees it beneath the glass coffee table, shifting half an inch over every time it vibrates.

Her neck and back protest as she picks it up.

"Hello?"

" _Oh, Regina dear_."

"Mother?"

Her mother sounds agitated, like she's been crying.

"Mother, what is it?"

Regina smoothes her hand over her cheek, where Robin's shirt has made an indentation, looking blearily around the apartment for a clue of the time. Then she remembers that she has a phone, and squints at the blindingly bright screen. 3:17am.

She feels Robin stir on the sofa behind her as Cora tells a fragmented story of Daddy waking up an hour ago unable to catch his breath, of chest pains and hacking coughs and an ambulance ride.

She almost doesn't feel Robin reach for her hand as she asks where and promises to head over immediately, her heart pounding and her muscles tensing.

She catches a glimpse of Robin's questioning concern as she ends the call and springs to her feet. "It's Daddy. He woke up an hour ago and couldn't breathe. They're at the hospital. I can't believe Mother didn't call right away." She hurries into the bedroom as she speaks, grabbing the first clothes she sees, nauseous with exhaustion and adrenaline.

Robin is up immediately, on the phone for a cab while he grabs a sweater and shoes for himself. She sees a thousand questions and reassurances in his eyes, and is thankful he chooses not to voice them.

She's ready in a handful of minutes, and tries to wait with some semblance of composure as he ties his shoelaces and finishes the call.

"They'll be downstairs in a moment," he tells her as he sets his phone down to tug a sweater over his head.

"Let's go."

.

.

.

Cora is in the waiting room when they arrive, and, Robin has to admit, looks slightly less perfectly put together than usual. "Hi, Sweetie," she croons, reaching for an embrace which Regina evades with a one-armed hug, her hand still tucked firmly in his.

"What's going on?" Regina presses her mother.

Robin could've sworn he was invisible to Cora when they walked in, but once she's given her saccharine greeting to Regina, she looks him up and down once with disgust. "Did he get caught in a violent wind on the way over?"

Robin glances at his clothes, wrinkled from being slept in and casual, even for him, to be wearing in public, and fights the urge to either roll his eyes or argue with her.

"Focus, Mother," Regina snaps. Both Robin and Cora turn to look at her. "How is he?"

Cora addresses her words only to her daughter. "Not too well, Dear. He's been on medication for that cough, but they think it's pneumonia now, and that's why he was having trouble breathing. They don't want anyone to go back and see him until they have him settled."

Robin watches Regina's paradoxical but now-familiar response. Shoulders high, lips pursed, eyes inscrutable and hard as ice. The only thing still outwardly soft about her is the hand she leaves in his. Small wonder the staff didn't want to deal with Cora while getting Henry settled, he thinks.

"He's been worse this weekend?"

"Yes, Dear. Much."

"Why didn't you tell me, Mother?"

Cora sighs, and Robin braces himself for whatever she's about to try next. "You know," she tells Regina, her tone of the kind that might be more appropriate when explaining the situation to a child of nine or ten years, and not to a full-grown adult, "You're always so hard to reach on the weekends, unlike those of us with normal jobs. And I did tell you both that this was going to happen if he kept up his schedule like that—But neither of you ever listen to me." A dismissive shrug of her shoulder towards Robin. "You're with him at all hours of the night, after all."

 _"Mother_."

"Yes?" Cora asks, all mock-innocence. Honestly, Robin thinks, pressing his lips shut to prevent another tirade, her capacity to make everything about _her_ is astounding.

"Let's go get some coffee, Regina, hm?" he offers, squeezing her hand.

Regina looks as though she's ready to argue more with her mother, but beneath that rage Robin sees her jaw tremble and her eyes widen, and he's eager to spare her from showing her mother how much she's gotten under her skin.

Regina opens her mouth to disagree, but her thoughts must have followed a similar path to his, because she sags the slightest bit and follows him to the other side of hospital's entryway, with one last, hard look at Cora.

Robin watches as Regina's arms tighten around her stomach, as though trying to prevent her emotions from escaping.

"You're sure you don't want anything?" He leans toward her, resting a hand on her forearm. "Another coffee? A quick walk around the block for some fresh air?"

"I'd tell you if I did," she snaps, shaking off his touch. "Stop asking."

He pulls back, momentarily stung and certain it briefly shows on his face.

"Sorry, I'm—" she meets his gaze and breaks off, her lips parting slightly.

"Scared. Upset. I know."

"I—"

"Ms. Mills?" They both turn to see a nurse approaching the bench they're sharing. "He's sleeping, but you can go see him now, if you'd like."

.

.

.

The waiting room's fluorescent lights are blinding after the near-dark of Henry's hospital room. Robin closes his tired eyes and tugs his jacket more firmly closed, eager to get both of them to a comfortable bed. Now that Henry's breathing is much improved, and he's been put on drugs that will keep him sleeping or out of it for the next twenty-four hours at least, there's no reason for them to stay.

"Will _he_ be coming with you to visit tomorrow. Because you know, I'd prefer if it was _family only_."

Robin spins around, suddenly more awake. Cora's using that half-whisper meant to just barely reach his ears.

"Yes, Mother. I imagine he will."

Cora huffs. "You got your violin, I suppose. But do you have to have him too?"

"Mother." Regina's voice sounds like a warning. Robin gives up all pretense of not hearing and walks back to where they're standing, to one side of the exit.

"Cora, would you please—"

Regina holds up a hand to cut him off, her eyes never leaving her mother's. She looks different. Not like she's trying to protect herself from a barb that's already sunk into her skin, but like she's defending herself from them.

"I'm not sure why you're trying to make tonight about this, Mother, but I assure you that you won't get what you want by criticizing him."

"Regina," Cora cries, feigning shock in a way that makes Robin cringe, "you're imagining things. I only want to make sure you haven't forgotten about your family. We need you, you know, and we miss you."

"Well then you shouldn't have pushed me away."

"I only wanted what's best for you. A good life, with—a real job, and a real relationship, instead of this childish infatuation."

"Calling them that only proves how little you know me."

"You're my daughter; of course I know you."

Regina stands taller. "Then you would've known to call me when Daddy first got sick."

"I called you quickly, Regina. Don't be so dramatic."

"It runs in the family, I suppose."

"Really, Regina. I hardly think it's the time for this."

"And I hardly think it's the time to criticize my boyfriend for rushing to the hospital with me and not stopping to put on a suit and tie."

"I merely meant to point out that he could've tried to look a little less sloppy."

Regina's voice is even, matter-of-fact. "I suppose I mussed up his clothes, Mother. Since we were sharing a bed."

"Regina," she cringes.

"What, Mother?"

"Oh, I just wants what's _best_ for you sweetheart. Like any mother would."

They had maintained a controlled quiet in their voices that kept them from the few people entering and exiting the hospital at 5am. Regina's next words are no exception, but they are harder, colder, and, to Robin's attuned hearing, sadder, and more broken. "You've never cared about that. You've never listened to what I wanted or even needed. I'm finally happy, mother. I do have a good life— _my_ good life. As impossible as it is for you to believe, I _like_ my life as it is, and that is no thanks to you."

Robin takes a deep breath as he looks between them, concerned for her and yet proud.

Cora opens her mouth to respond, but Regina cuts her off decisively. "Call me when there's any news about Daddy. Otherwise, please don't."

.

.

.

"Tea?" Robin offers as he sits beside Regina on the bed. She is fresh faced and warm from her shower, and she has swapped out her clothing for a set of cotton pajamas.

She lets her head fall onto his shoulder.

"Thanks for coming with me," she murmurs, taking a deep breath of the fragrant steam from the tea.

He wraps an arm around her waist. "Always." They stay like that for a moment, in the home that's most definitely _theirs,_ even if she hasn't quite been able to admit it yet. He tries to let that thought go for now.

"Mother called," she shrugs a shoulder toward the phone resting on the duvet. "The doctors say he's doing a little better."

"That's good," he encourages.

She makes a noncommittal sound.

"We can visit this evening, once we've rested a little."

"Yeah."

"Did you talk about—"

"—anything else? No."

"Hm."

"I'm almost—relieved I said all of that. It felt…good. Is that strange?"

He rests a hand on her shoulder and smooths out locks of her damp hair. "Not in the least. And if I may say so, you were superb."

She lets out a half laugh.

"Really," he insists.

She takes a sip of tea, pausing. "It's easier to think that—she just wants to coerce me into doing exactly what she wants, and nothing else."

Robin hums in agreement. "But she does love you."

She lifts her weight from him to meet his gaze. "Yes. And that makes it so much sadder."

He finds no adequate words, and so threads his hand into hers.

"You look exhausted," she observes softly, reaching to touch his face. His mind is still on Cora, and he imagines hers to be as well. Still, though he detects emotional fatigue and the residue of hurt in her features, there is nothing to suggest that she is feeling truly unsettled. Perhaps it hadn't been so much a sudden or startling realization about her mother, as an admission of something she'd known for a very long time.

His words are teasing, but his tone quiet and gentle. "Funny, that, when there weren't even sheets for you to rob me of last night."

Her nose wrinkles and she shakes her head in reluctant amusement.

"Come to that, I didn't sleep very well Friday, either. Or Saturday."

"Neither did I," she agrees. "Also, I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

"Famished. Toast and eggs?"

"Sounds perfect."

As they stand and begin to walk to the kitchen, his phone chimes from his pocket, and he recalls having seen something from John last night that he'd likely never responded to.

A glance at his phone screen tells him that he remembered correctly. He'd missed several in late evening, and has another from just now.

 _11:21pm How'd it go?_

 _11:22pm Is it a good thing I haven't heard from you?_

 _11:22pm It has to be a good thing, right?_

 _11:23pm Call me, would you._

 _11:25pm Or, you know, don't. If you're busy._

 _7:38am Robin?_

"Subtle," Robin murmurs with a raised brow and a nod.

"What is?"

"It's John," he informs her, shaking his head even as he grins, and types back a quick response promising explanations later, "reacting with poorly contained glee to the fact that I didn't go back there last night." He holds up the screen so that she can see the quantity of texts he's received from his flatmate.

Regina rolls her eyes.

Despite the rain, it's an almost-pleasant day for late February, and so he props the kitchen window open a couple of inches for the smell of fresh rain and the light breeze.

It's so comfortable in the grey, quiet midmorning here. Refreshing, and calm, and safe.

Between them they make quick work of cooking breakfast, and sit at the table to eat.

"What are these?" Robin picks up a large navy binder, shifting it to lie beside a second. A second glance shows him that they are photo albums, and he recalls having seen them in a storage cupboard somewhere.

"I was looking at them on Saturday."

Robin tugs one towards him and flips it open to a random page, dropping his fork back on his plate. There are no captions, no explanations, no dates, but he doesn't need them. He remembers that he took the first, of Regina, all of nine, grinning down at him from the upper branches of a tree she'd just climbed. On the facing page is a picture of him, biting his lip in concentration as he carefully spells out her name on the cake for her eleventh birthday party. He smiles as he remembers Regina ordering him not to forget the proper cursive capital _R_ , and the cook allowing them to share what had remained of the red frosting they'd used to decorate. He hears rather than sees her smile from beside him.

He turns a few pages to a photograph in which they both feature. Regina's smiling into the camera, her eyes bright, her hands closed around her bow and the stem of her violin, and Robin is beside her, his arm around her shoulders, kissing her cheek, Regina's blush just beginning to spread. "We must've been what?" Robin asks, grinning, "Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"Something like that."

He runs his finger over their faces. "I don't think I'd even yet realized what an enormous crush I had on you." He shoots her a grin.

Her eyes dance.

He glances over to the right side of the page, tilting his head as he tries to remember what was happening in the photograph at the top of the page. It is of him alone, and he is smiling tersely, almost halfheartedly at whoever took the photo, presumably Regina. He tries to think back. The clear sky and colorful wildflowers in the photo means it must have been late spring or early summer, and he recognizes the meadow overlooking the grounds, but he can't recall a time when they'd had a camera there.

He taps his thumb against it. "I've never seen that one before."

"What one?"

"On the right," he explains, shifting the book closer to her. "At the top?"

She takes a more intentional look.

"It goes with this one." She turns the page and points to a photograph of her at the top of the next page. It is clearly on the same day, and in the same place as the photograph of him. She is in profile, sitting up, her hands in the grass, her eyes trained at some point in the distance.

"You had just turned eighteen," she answers, her voice becoming a little rough. "Do you remember?"

He stares at her, then at the photograph. He does. It had been the last time they'd been alone before he left. For a week after he'd kissed her, she'd been studiously avoiding him. But on that day, she'd dragged him to the top of the hill, for old time's sake, she'd said, to tell him that she'd met her offer from Cambridge and that she had accepted.

He had taken that photo of her.

But he'd never known she still had it, and he certainly doesn't remember her taking one of him.

"Yes," he admits, swallowing heavily. "I remember."

She shifts closer, presumably at the roughness of his voice, drawing him into an embrace around the edge of the table.

He buries his face in her neck, his hands on the small of her back and pressing her closer. "Hard to forget. And you say I'm the sap…"

It had been a pretty clear reaction back then, he'd always thought, when he'd been kissing her one moment and she'd run from the room the next. He had allowed himself to think that it was a rejection not only of a romantic relationship but of the inseparable friendship that they had built over a decade. And though he doesn't remember the photograph being taken, he feels certain that this is what had been on his mind in it.

It had been so much easier back then to think that she had not wanted to stay close to him than to think that she had wanted to and couldn't let herself.

Her voice is muffled against his shoulder, gentle in its teasing. "Be careful. I might have to tease you to cheer you up, and I think I know quite a few embarrassing stories from your childhood."

 ** _A few days later_**

Robin wakes to the sound of rain out the cracked-open window. He cranes his neck to see the clock on the bedside table, wincing a little at the arm that's gone numb beneath Regina's head. The green numbers show that it's half past seven.

He flexes his hand carefully, trying to return blood flow to the limb without waking her, but a moment later she's moving against her, her weight shifting on the mattress as she turns to face him.

"Morning," he greets softly, sinking his free hand into her hair.

She smiles drowsily, and slides a hand around the back of his neck, her fingers kneading gently at the stiff muscles there.

Her eyes begin to flutter closed again.

"Regina, love?"

"Mhm?"

"Could I possibly have my arm back?"

Her lips quirk at the corners. She opens her eyes fully again and lifts her head just long enough for him to retrieve his protesting limb.

"Heavy, you are," he observes mildly, flexing his arm at the elbow as much as he can in the scant space between them. "Too much music knocking about in there."

She swats at his good arm, then reaches to check her phone, and, seeming to find nothing of concern in any missed texts or calls, drops it back on the bedside table.

"No news?"

"Daddy texted a little while ago. He's settling in well back at home."

He catches her hand and rubs a thumb over the back of it. "We can take the train up to see him after your rehearsal's over this afternoon, if you want."

She hums her agreement. A moment later, she pushes her weight off of the pillows until she sits cross-legged beside him. He half-sits to join her. "What is it?"

"Nothing. I just…like waking up with a grumpy puppy in my bed."

"I am not grumpy." He makes a show of narrowing his eyes at her, "Ridiculous woman. I'm adequately aware of the importance of rest."

"Mm," she hums. "Nope. You're a grumpy puppy," her fingers find the ends of his hair and tug gently, "floppy ears and all."

"Woof," he teases. She chuckles, and he has to trace her smile with his thumb.

"Hey, Robin?"

"Hmm?"

She looks down at their hands, then back into his eyes with fierce determination. "I think you should move in with me."

His face breaks into an ecstatic smile. "Are you certain?"

She jostles their joined hands, and is, as always, unshakeable now that she's made up her mind. "Yes."

"I'm moving in?"

"Yes. I want you to. If you still do."

He pecks her lips through laughter.

"I'm moving in," he repeats, giddy.

"Yes."

"With you."

"Yes."

"Thank God."

"What?" she laughs.

"I'm serious, I'm pretty sure John was going to kick me out if I spent any more evenings 'waxing poetic' about you."

She swats at his arm. "Stop flirting."

"I like flirting with you. I'm told I'm very good at it."

"Oh, and who told you that?"

"You're smiling," he points out.

"You're being ridiculous."

"You're blushing," he adds.

"You're an idiot," she laughs, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Mmhm, I thought I was a grumpy puppy."

"That too."

"Do you know what makes me less grouchy when I wake up?" He lifts his weight onto his knees and tugs her closer, his forehead bending to rest against hers.

"Coffee?" she suggests, running the back of her hand under his jaw and down his neck. "Eggs and bacon?"

"Perhaps." He presses a kiss to her jaw, his fingers coming to cradle her neck. "Although I was thinking of something else."

"A nice solid rain for your wildflowers?" she offers, swallowing heavily as his lips land on her neck.

"No." He moves until he hovers over her, one hand burrowing under her blue cotton camisole and onto the warm skin of her belly.

"The thought of a pr-" she halts on a breathy gasp as his tongue finds her pulse point, "-properly watered orchid?"

"No." His own voice is rough, his breath hitching as her nails score across his shoulders over his cotton shirt.

"I'm at a loss, then," she admits with a weary sigh.

"Really?" he asks as his hand leaves her stomach to push away the strap of her camisole. "Then I suppose I'll have to show you."

"Definitely," she agrees.

 ** _A few months later_**

"Hi," Regina murmurs as she softly closes the door to Robin's room.

He moves to sit more fully on the bed, smiling. "Hey."

Her parents have given him one of the smaller guest rooms, several doors away from the childhood bedroom and bathroom suite that she still stays in when she visits.

Regina unties and discards her dressing gown on a nearby chair, lifting the edge of the duvet so that she can slide into bed beside him.

"Do you think she knows that we do this?" Robin asks as he reaches for her hand, curious but not overly concerned about it.

"Probably," Regina confesses. She sighs as she leans back against the pillows and drops her head onto his shoulder. "Daddy does, anyway."

"Mm. On the other hand, your mother did seem a bit distressed about the implications of us living together now."

Regina snorts. "A bit?" She thinks back with an urge to roll her eyes, and yet a pulse of hurt beneath it, at the way Mother had reacted, raising an eyebrow and pursing her lips at her daughter as though she were tainted, letting a mere gardener touch her.

"This hasn't exactly been the most enjoyable visit, but…I'm glad we're here. I'm glad you two worked everything out enough for that."

"We have an…arrangement," Regina agrees. Mother knows where the boundary is, the line she shouldn't cross if she wants a relationship with her daughter. And even though she comes perilously close to it at times, Regina at least feels as though she has a little bit of control. Things aren't ever going to be great, but they're…better.

They sit in companionable silence for several minutes, the room silent save for their breaths and the ticking of an old clock on the far wall.

"This kind of looks like the room we used to play in when we were little, while your parents were hosting a party downstairs," Robin finally observes, looking around the room again as if to check.

"It is, I think," Regina replies, stifling a yawn. "They painted it and switched out some of the furniture a few years ago."

He looks more closely. "The table and chairs used to be there?" he points to their right, "And you set up your music stand over by the windows?"

She nods in agreement. "Right."

"Remember we used to sneak into the kitchens too?" he chuckles. "We were lucky the cook had such a soft spot for you."

She turns to look at him, her fingers grazing across his jaw, her own lips lifted into a smile. "And set so many pastries aside for us."

He traces patterns into her palm, his thumb pressing into the violinist's calluses on the pads of her fingers. "I seem to recall you forcing me to sit through quite a few mock auditions on those nights as well."

She sighs heavily, grinning. "See, I should've known you were in love with me."

"It wasn't such a hardship." He murmurs, shifting onto his side to see her face. His gaze is tender, breathtakingly so, as he close the space between them and catches her lips with his own. Their noses bump clumsily in the dark, and his hands brush her hair out of their way as he comes to hover over her and she turns onto her back. His elbows dig into the pillow on either side of her head, and she shivers as his tongue slides over hers.

She wraps her arms around his neck, tugging him closer.

A hum escapes her as he pulls back a few moments later, smiling softly.

"I've always wanted to do that here," he confesses, biting his lip with a mischievous grin and dancing eyes.

"Ah," she teases. "And so the fantasies of the teenage Robin are fulfilled. So glad I could be of service."

He frowns mildly. 'I meant that—"

She chuckles, craning her neck up to peck his lips. "It's all right. I know what you meant."

She curls a hand around his neck, dragging him back down so that she can kiss along his jaw, swirl her tongue against the spot on his neck that tears a reliably rough groan from his throat. "Did our first kiss not count?" she asks.

"Well—" he breaks off, distracted, as her lips find his neck, "we weren't together. And you certainly didn't kiss me like this."

She lifts her body from the mattress and presses his shoulders until he turns and flops onto his back, gazing up at her with dark eyes. "So, what else was in this fantasy of yours?"

His hands fall to her hips, and he reaches to kiss her again before he answers. She stares, watching as his eyes soften, as he lifts one hand from her hip to thread it through her hair, her heart thudding steadily and her belly filling with liquid warmth. "Regina, I didn't even know what to imagine back then. This past year has been so much better than anything I ever could've…"

She kisses him heatedly, tugging at his shirt until he complies and lifts it over his head.

"You have to be quiet," she orders, swallowing his moan as their bodies press together.

"They're in the other wing of the house," he protests.

"Robin." She lifts her head, looking down at him sternly, or as sternly as she can manage.

"I'll try."

She narrows her eyes.

He tangles a hand in her hair, sliding his palm from neck to shoulder to back. "Promise."

Her frustrated expression soon fades as he loops an arm around her back and spins them again, tugging at the blankets until they are comfortably settled. He rests a hand on her bare skin beneath her nightgown, pushing it up and up. She catches him just as he bends to kiss her again. She shakes her head, leaning back against the pillows and tugging him with her. "How did we not do this years ago?"

Robin grins into her lips, moving his to her temple, to the sensitive skin behind her ear, so that he can reply. "Talk late into the night? We did that all of the time."

"Robin," she laughs, tangling fingers in his hair.

"Oh, you mean sit together on the same bed? No…"

He grasps one of her hands and twines their fingers together, squeezing tightly as his lips make their way down her neck, across her collarbone. "Hold hands?"

"Robin," she warns.

"You are stunning," he says against her skin, undoing several buttons so that he can shove her nightgown out of the way, and dotting kisses over the swell of her breast, "you know that?"

She sighs as his lips finally reach her nipple, then groans in protest as he starts a path back up towards her collarbone. "You are horrible," she pants.

"Really?" he teases as he presses his lips to hers.

She hums into his lips, her hand flexing in his hair. "Awful," she confirms as he pulls away yet again.

"See, that's why you didn't give in. I'm far too frustrating."

He catches her lips again, capturing them in a heady kiss, one hand balancing some of his weight off of her as the other sinks into her hair.

Her hands curl around his biceps, one of her legs locking around his hips.

"Will you _please_ shut up and kiss me." It is not a question; it is an order.

"As you wish."

He could never resist her, really.

"Still horrible?" he teases, trailing kisses along her jaw. He knows her so well that he anticipates it a moment before she pushes her shoulders and hips against the bed until he flops onto his back beneath her.

Her hair, still slightly wavy from its recent braids, tumbles down one side of her face, some of it trailing across his chest where it has grown the longest. She smirks down at his dazed expression, her grin warm against his skin when she kisses his Adam's apple and his hand tightens reflexively in her hair. She stays there only for a moment before she's trailing her way down his chest, nipping with her teeth and then soothing with her tongue in a way that always leaves him dark-eyed and slack-jawed, but this time, as she curls a hand around his wrist and moves his hand to the center of her chest, over her heart, he cannot stop a low moan. "Shh," she murmurs.

He sighs heavily, dizzy with pleasure, though she's not even touching him anywhere that warrants it.

"You all right?"

He licks his lips, swallows roughly as she moves back to where their gazes can meet, "When I last lived here, I thought we would never…"

She smiles softly, something warm and inexplicable welling in her chest. "I chose you," she tells him, fingers sliding along his jaw, "and music, and…a happy life."

He looks almost teary-eyed at her, and it takes him only a handful of seconds to surge up and capture her lips against his. "I'm so glad you did."

She laughs as he wipes a tear from beneath her eye. "Me, too."


End file.
